There are plenty of race kites available on the secondhand market, Flysurfer Race, VMG and Ozone R1’s. Most are heavily discounted from new price.
I understand it is best not to get these wet, taking on water much quicker than say a Sonic 2 or Soul. I was wondering what the reason for this is, as they probably use similar cloth. All I can think is that is caused by intake sock length, intake placement or intake design that makes them more of a sponge than the freeride kites.
Does anyone have any info on this.
Thanks

For the same size a soul vs vmg will have roughly twice the volume of air inside due to the lower aspect ratio. Meaning more air needed to escape before parts of the kite starts sinking.

Foilkites will leak the most air through the seams, so a lower cell count and lack of mini ribs will leak much less air.

Combine those two characteristics and you see why a soul will stay inflated roughly 4x longer compared to the same size race kite with the same cloth out of the same factory.

Also a higher aspect ratio will fold in on itself way more easily plus a vmg has less draining capability to aid the performance making the relaunch capability even worse. But those kites are mostly flown by skilled kiters so it isn't as big of a problem compared to a freeride foilkite like the soul.

Sonic 2/3 have similar aspect ratio compared to the vmg but lower cell count and a bigger drain so the relaunch will be a bit better.